Thinking About Work

I have been thinking through a lot of tricky writing stuff lately.
Currently writing issue 6 of Amazing Triple Action, the superhero roleplaying game zine released by Adamant Entertainment. It includes a bunch of fairly tricky character set-ups, in terms of the rule systems I need to master to represent them right. It’s kind of pleasing to find that, where I’ve encountered grey areas and other difficulties, tracking down the word of the original designer usually confirms my suspicions. It’s good to be solving problems the same way as the joker who set the whole ball rolling – suggests that I know my oats on this stuff. It does get pretty technical.
It’s also just stupidly fun to sit around riffing off comic books – inhaling that pop culture subgenre so intensely through my childhood has given me the beef for it, that much is clear. Issue 6 will feature some very silly stuff indeed, and I love it to pieces.
Also working hard on Ron the Body – well into the actual writing now, as opposed to the preparing-to-write phase that took so damn long. I have become much more sensitive to the shape of the book, the way narrative rises and falls and takes the reader along, the way mysteries are suggested and questions are answered and tensions heightened. I was stuck on a particularly tricky Chapter 8 for a while, which seemed to be doing everything the plot needed and wanted but just felt way, way off. Then I realised, in one of those moments of sudden comprehension that you get, that Chapter 8 was actually mostly still Chapter 7. So now I have a beefed-up but well-shaped Chapter 7 and a Chapter 8 that doesn’t feel like it’s doing too many things at once. That’s fun, that is.
And yesterday while on the train home from netball I scribbled the final page of script for issue 3 of The Beast, a comic story I’ve been working on at odd moments all year. It’s six issues, each 16 pages of story, about a bunch of friends who start organising a series of late-night parties that begin to get out of hand. The final page of issue 3 is the mid-point twist, and I enjoyed writing it – I have the entire series broken down into page-by-page plot development, so it was cathartic to finally hit that point. Now I just need to find someone who wants to draw it…

By the way, those who missed Billy’s comment, there was a followup to the V at the White House article, with photos of many Vs. Cool.

4 thoughts on “Thinking About Work”

  1. I like drawing! But I have limited skill and even less free time. Maybe I do you some fan-art when you famous Moose.

  2. Hey bruv, would like to put me name down (for comic) if ya want me, but will talk to friends (in country) to see if we can get someone more comic style. Me leaving country will not help I suppose. humm ….Joules! Talk to Joules, he must have the mean hook ups.

Comments are closed.